SUMMARY This five-year U54 proposal is a collaborative, inter-institutional partnership between South Carolina State University (SCSU), an Historically Black University (HBCU), and the Medical University of South Carolina Hollings Cancer Center (MUSC-HCC), a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center. The partnership began in 2011 under the auspices of an NCI P20 CPACHE grant and has grown to produce this U54 South Carolina Cancer Disparities Research Center (SC CADRE) application. With input from their joint community partner, the Regional Medical Center of Orangeburg Mabry Cancer Center (RMC-MCC), investigators at both institutions collaborated to design the SC CADRE. The overarching goals of the SC CADRE are to increase SCSU's capacity to conduct transdisciplinary cancer research and to further strengthen and extend a longitudinal research education pipeline that will catalyze a new diverse generation of biomedical researchers focused on cancer disparities. The SC CADRE has three major themes. The first focuses on evaluating the relationship between obesity and prostate and breast cancer disparities. The second theme emphasizes evaluation of advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) as a novel biomarker related to cancer, cancer disparities, and obesity. The third theme highlights the inclusion of a population unique to the US southeastern coastal region, the Sea Island (SI)/Gullah population. Within five years, the SC CADRE aims for: 1) further elucidation of molecular mechanisms contributing to cancer disparities; 2) an enhanced pipeline of diverse cancer researchers; 3) an increased number of NIH research proposals led by SCSU faculty as independent investigators; and 4) greater community engagement in cancer research. Due to the longstanding SCSU /MUSC-HCC academic partnership and each entity's research and educational strengths and community relationships, the SC CADRE is poised to transform cancer health outcomes for South Carolinians.